But Do We Really Though? Friday the 13th (2017-ish?)

It’s been 36 years since the original’s release in 1980. Nine sequels, a frustrating video game, and a “versus” movie followed, before receiving the reboot treatment in 2009, all but killing the franchise, like the tip of a spear through the throat of a soon-to-cut-footloose Kevin Bacon. Just the tip.

Jason Voorhees has been to camp, outer space, Hell, Springwood, and even Manhattan (for about eleven minutes of screen time). He’s decapitated folks, he’s fought a dream demon, and he’s spied on countless skinny dippers dipping skinnies in his lake. He’s crashed through so many windows, in an effort to jump scare the shit out of teens in tiny panties, that he’s provided a boon to the breakaway glass industry for decades. Still, after all this, it appears JV has not yet claimed the life of his final camp counselor. Which begs the ultimate question; do we really need another Friday the 13th?

Fuuuuuuuuuuck yes!!!

Provided it’s handled properly…

It used to be every few years they’d rush another new Friday the 13th sequel into theaters, spending two to three million making them, while raking in 20 to 30 million at the worldwide box office. They’d make these cheap, shitty, amazing goldmines and the world would keep on turning ‘round, like the head of a drunken teen at a cornfield rave.

The 2009 misstep managed to be a commercial success, as the highest grossing film in the franchise (not counting Freddy vs Jason), bringing in over 65 million dollars domestically on a budget of just 19 million. Despite its lukewarm reception by fans and critics alike, a sequel could easily have been shoved down our throats, like a machete through the breastplate of an unsuspecting, shirtless blonde (male or female, our boy Jay doesn’t discriminate). But they’ve held off, showing a level of restraint that Hollywood execs rarely do, pushing back several release dates, one or two actual, real life Fridays the 13th at a time, in search of the right script, the right director, and the right tone to bring Jason back to his former gory. Sorry, typo, I meant “glory.” Or did I?

I’ve been a fan of the franchise since I was six years old, spending countless Halloweens watching Jason marathons with my grandmother. That chick was a total badass! As corny and as far off the rails as they went with some of the sequels, the franchise always gave us something different, unique and interesting on its titular release date. From eye-popping 3D (literally, watch the Part 3 DVD, it comes with red and blue glasses), to telekinetic heroines, to a young Corey Feldman being as Corey-fucking-Feldman-esque as they’d let him be, they always, kept it fresh. The biggest disappointment of all was to see Friday the 13th become a boring, generic, standard slasher flick.

That being said, I don’t hate 2009’s reboot. In fact, I’m fairly confident that I’m one of the few open non-haters of the Marcus Nispel film. I didn’t love it, and it wasn’t a “good” movie, but I didn’t hate it. The first seven minutes, prior to the opening title, made a great Jason movie. I was pumped! I remember turning to my friend Mike and letting out an audible, “Holy shit! They just got to the title?! This is gonna be amazing!” Then came the last 80 minutes, which made for a horrible “bunch of teens in their 30’s that no one cares about running away from lame kills” let down of a movie.

It didn’t have the same energy as some of the originals and lacked their magic. The kills were unmemorable, the characters were unlikeable, and Supernatural’s Jared Padalecki felt like the only one who actually wanted to be there, despite the fact that they gave him hardly anything to do, wandering around, trying to solve some half-assed attempt at a mystery. No group of theatergoers has ever flocked to the Friday the 13th franchise for the detective work.

We, the fans, deserve better.

And, in 2017, we may be getting it! Hopefully…

Let’s face it… Remakes of classic horror films have traditionally been rushed into production. But with Friday the 13th they have been taking their time. This suggests that they understand what went wrong last time and want to fix it. They could have easily put out another movie or two by now and grabbed our cash, like a chained up Jason at the bottom of Crystal Lake reaching up to grab someone and pull them under the water, even though, as I stated, he’s supposedly at the bottom. How the hell shallow is that lake then, that they never found his drowned-ass body in the original? That’s just bad dredge work.

The latest good news to come out of the Jason camp (see what I did there?) is that a new director has been found! And it’s a director who has successfully remade a classic horror film from the same era… Breck Eisner! He’s not exactly a household name and his resume features as much awkward flailing as the Crispin Glover dance sequence in Friday the 13th: Part IV. Seriously, go watch this scene right now! It’s the most amazing thing you’ll ever see! But I’m cautiously optimistic in his horror skills.

Eisner has made two HUGE blockbuster films, in the 130 million dollar Sahara and the 90 million dollar Vin Diesel vehicle The Last Witch Hunter, and both flopped hard. Why is this not necessarily an immediate red flag? Those are not horror films. They’re big, dumb adventure stories. Friday the 13th is a much smaller movie on a much smaller budget, on the same scope as Eisner’s biggest success as a filmmaker… the 2010 remake of George A. Romero’s 1973 classic The Crazies. Ironically, both this remake, and the 2009 Friday the 13th remake, featured a young, charismatic, and adorable Danielle Panabaker, now on the CWs The Flash.

A small, tense, well acted, well-directed film; The Crazies starred Timothy Olyphant as a small-town sheriff fighting a localized threat. The story was told from a smaller scale perspective, and in isolation, similar to most of the films featuring our beloved hockey mask-clad psycho. Its solid characters, good chills, and creepy imagery make this one of the better, if not best, remakes of our generation, leading the film to be both a critical and commercial success on a modest $20 million dollar budget… the same amount budgeted for the upcoming Friday the 13th. Some directors do a better job with smaller movies, and can’t handle the level of studio interference that comes with a nine-figure budget. Let’s hope that’s the case here, as it appears to be, with Mr. Eisner.

That’s assuming, of course, that he’s the last director to enter the revolving door that is this movie’s director’s chair…

It’s been 13 years since Jay-Voo fought the Fredster and truly inhabited what we always loved to see in our tall, dark, and sometimes moldy-headed maniac. Release dates have come and gone, directors have come and gone, and the idea of making this a found footage reboot has thankfully gone even quicker than it ever came. But one fact still remains; the world deserves a new Jason movie.

As a Jersey boy myself, I am excited to return to Camp Crystal Lake, aka Camp Blood. At this point, there’s practically zero chance of hitting the currently slated January 2017 release date, but I am on board 100 percent with the way they’ve spent years trying to do the movie and the character justice and make it right. Just, whatever you do, don’t have Jared Padalecki’s character pump his own gas on the way to camp. He actually pumped his own gas! In New Jersey! That’s not legal! Now you’ve got him and Jason both running around doing super illegal stuff; I don’t even know which one I’m supposed to root for anymore… It completely took me out of the movie. Don’t do that, Breck Eisner!

About The Author

Brian K. Millard is many things; a film fan and a filmmaker, a writer who hates to read, a sarcastic prick who’s somehow super lovable. He typically has a beard at the bottom of the front of his head, and he wears hats. Most of his clothes are black, but he's not goth, just really lazy, and that style makes it easy to get dressed in the dark. He's a recent transplant to Los Angeles from New Jersey, so if anyone knows of any “real” pizza places in the LA area PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE let him know where he can find them! He misses pizza so much… Oh, and if anyone he knows from Jersey is reading this, he guesses he misses you too. But, now he's in LA, and he's an actor, writer and filmmaker, best known for borrowing money from people while explaining to them that he needs it because he's an actor, writer and filmmaker. They also shouldn’t expect to get it back right away, mom, but he's working on it. He lives to entertain, which is ironic because he really doesn’t like people in general. So… there’s that.